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Phys.org / Rare 'universal paralog' genes may reveal a pre-LUCA evolutionary record

All life on Earth shares a common ancestor that lived roughly four billion years ago. This so-called "last universal common ancestor" (LUCA) represents the most ancient organism that researchers can study. Previous research ...

Feb 5, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Solid, iron-rich megastructure under Hawaii slows seismic waves and may drive plume upwelling

Mantle plumes beneath volcanic hotspots, like Hawaii, Iceland, and the Galapagos, seem to be anchored into a large structure within the core-mantle boundary (CMB). A new study, published in Science Advances, takes a deeper ...

Feb 3, 2026 in Earth
Tech Xplore / A bot-only social media platform: What the Moltbook experiment is teaching us about AI

What happens when you create a social media platform that only AI bots can post to? The answer, it turns out, is both entertaining and concerning. Moltbook is exactly that—a platform where artificial intelligence agents ...

Feb 5, 2026 in Computer Sciences
Phys.org / DNA provides a solution to our enormous data storage problem

Since the dawn of the computer age, researchers have wrestled with two persistent challenges: how to store ever-increasing reams of data and how to protect that information from unintended access. Now, researchers with Arizona ...

Feb 5, 2026 in Nanotechnology
Medical Xpress / Genetic study shows that anxiety disorders have many causes

About 1 in 4 people suffer from an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. These include panic disorder with sudden, severe anxiety attacks; generalized anxiety disorder, in which sufferers worry about everyday things ...

Feb 5, 2026 in Genetics
Phys.org / A smarter way to watch biology at work: Microfluidic droplet injector drastically cuts sample consumption

Watching proteins move as they drive the chemical reactions that sustain life is one of the grand challenges of modern biology. In recent years, X-ray free-electron lasers, or XFELs, have begun to meet that challenge, capturing ...

Feb 5, 2026 in Biology
Tech Xplore / GeSn alloys emerge as a new semiconductor class that could reshape optoelectronics

Scientists have created a new type of material that could enable common electronic devices to work faster and use less energy, a study suggests. The findings indicate the material, which was until now thought near-impossible ...

Feb 5, 2026 in Engineering
Phys.org / Faster enzyme screening could cut biocatalysis bottlenecks in drug development

A team of biochemists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has developed a faster way to identify molecules in the lab that could lead to more effective pharmaceuticals. The discovery advances the rapidly growing ...

Feb 5, 2026 in Chemistry
Medical Xpress / Saline nasal spray alone resolves sleep-disordered breathing in nearly one-third of children, study finds

Investigators based at Monash Children's Hospital and Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne report that a once-daily intranasal saline spray resolved obstructive sleep-disordered breathing symptoms in nearly one-third of children ...

Feb 2, 2026 in Pediatrics
Phys.org / Listening to polymers collapse: 'Water bridges' pull the strings

It is not easy to follow the interactions of large molecules with water in real time. But this can be easier to hear than to see. This is how an international team deciphered the role of water in the collapse of PNIPAM.

Feb 5, 2026 in Chemistry
Phys.org / Surgery for quantum bits: Bit-flip errors corrected during superconducting qubit operations

Quantum computers hold great promise for exciting applications in the future, but for now they keep presenting physicists and engineers with a series of challenges and conundrums. One of them relates to decoherence and the ...

Feb 5, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / Seeds 'listen' to mom: Study finds mother plants send ABA hormone signals that set seed dormancy

Whatever challenges life throws, mothers often know best as they guide offspring through the risky stages of early development. This scenario, familiar when applied to humans, turns out to be true for plants too, according ...

Feb 5, 2026 in Biology